


Patience

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Series: Sons of Iron [4]
Category: Glee, Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 09:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was definitely going to be one of those very different kinds of Christmas celebrations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladybug218](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladybug218/gifts).



> Written for Fandom Stocking 2013 and part of my fic universe where Blaine and Cooper are the sons of Tony Stark.

This was definitely going to be one of those very different kinds of Christmas celebrations.

It was obvious when Blaine arrived that it had been Pepper who did all of the decorating. He couldn’t imagine his father having the patience for the small lights – or the self-control not to make everything huge and everything robotic.

What surprised Blaine the most was that Cooper had accepted his father’s invitation and was now walking into the living room. He and Coop hadn’t really spoken much since their fight when Cooper was teaching stuff at his school. There was just too much hurt and anger between them and he had no idea when or if any of it would be addressed.

Cooper was very good and avoiding things that he didn’t want to deal with. He wasn’t aware that all of his thoughts were written all over his face until Pepper came to join him on the couch.

She watched Cooper and Tony attempt to get a strand of lights to work while draped around one of the Iron Man suits.

“That’s not really going to work, you know,” she finally said, watching the other two men.

“Why? Is there something about the suit that will short circuit the lights?”

“Well, no, but I went through and loosened or broke the connectors of every second, fifth and tenth light.”

Blaine laughed. “Scrambled it enough so he wouldn’t be able to fix it right away.”

“Yes. I can’t imagine anything more tacky and wrong than one of the suits used as a metal Christmas Tree. I’d feel bad for the armor and for Jarvis.” She turned her head to look at Blaine. “But I was actually talking about you trying to act like everything is just fine when your emotions are flashings signal lights.”

Blaine sighed. “I’m sorry, Pepper. I am trying to keep all of my personal stuff inside and out of the way so as not to ruin anyone’s Christmas. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

“Wrong,” she said. “Try again. Your father would have been hurt if you didn’t come for the holidays and then I would have had to drag you here by your hair – and I would have.”

Blaine didn’t dare laugh. He had no doubts that Pepper really would have done that if he had tried to come up with some dumb excuse to bow out of the gathering. 

“It’s Cooper. Things are really strained between us right now and I’m not sure if things ever are not strained. It just seems that when we are together, we fight or he tries to show everyone how successful he has become and when we’re not together, well, we only talk sometimes. We haven’t really talked a lot about things that are more than his latest film or TV success.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t know how to talk to you, Blaine?” Pepper took a sip from her glass of cider. 

“Cooper never has a problem talking to people.”

“ _People_.” Pepper stressed. “He talks to people that he doesn’t know and has no personal ties to and therefore only has to come up with superficial topics to discuss. He has a great deal of difficulty talking to people that are important to him.” Pepper made a humming sound. “I wonder where he gets that trait.” She was watching Tony.

“How do you deal with it, Pepper? I mean, you love my Dad, so I know that how you would deal with him is different than how I would deal with Cooper, but I’m always at a loss with my brother.”

“I’m patient.”

Blaine definitely couldn’t argue with that. When it came to dealing with some of his father’s quirks and habits, Pepper sometimes had the patience of a saint. He didn’t know how she managed it, but he did like seeing how happy they were together. He liked seeing that his dad was mostly happy and completely in love with Pepper.

“I try being patient with Coop,” Blaine sighed. “But I am apparently just not that good at it, because I’m patient and patient and things still go unresolved or don’t even get addressed because he doesn’t even notice there’s a problem.”

Pepper turned to look back at him, wincing as she heard the sound of glass break from whatever Tony had knocked down. “Then maybe you need to take a more direct approach. If patience isn’t working, then you need to try being confrontational. Not all of the time, mind you. That would be too much drama and would make even smaller situations so much worse. You need to pick your battles with your brother, Blaine. Decide which ones are the big issues that you need to confront him about and force him to address. If you can start doing that, then it won’t be so hard to keep your patience for the issues to be dealt with that you don’t consider all that big. You’ll find that you have a lot more issues that aren’t that big than you realized.” Whatever else she was going to say to him was lost when she suddenly whipped her head around in Tony’s direction. “Tony Stark, no you are not!”

Blaine leaned back against the couch and watched Pepper stalk over to his dad – and why was he wearing what looked like a colander with Christmas lights sticking through the holes on his head? He shook his head then and stood up. He’d think about the advice that Pepper had given him later. Right now, it looked like she could use his help dissuading his dad and his older brother from whatever insane scheme they were trying to get her to agree to.


End file.
